Becoming More Shakespearean

I've been confronting one of my fears lately—of Shakespeare—though I suppose it wouldn't be quite accurate to call it a fear: The bard is more a source of abiding insecurity.

Here, in no particular order, are some things about Shakespeare that make me feel like a lightweight:

ENLARGE

Rob Shepperson

• I can't spell his name. It shouldn't be that hard. But it usually takes me several attempts, and even then I have to look it up.

• I don't understand what Shakespeare's characters are saying much of the time. This is particularly true when I'm reading his works, slightly less so when I see them acted. But I still find myself scratching my head roughly every other line. And what makes it worse is that I'm convinced everyone else gets it.

• I feel inferior because I haven't seen or read enough Shakespeare. It's a massive sinkhole in my education. I'm not even going to mention how little Shakespeare I'm familiar with. OK, I will: "Hamlet," "King Lear," maybe "Romeo and Juliet."

Last week, in an effort to vanquish my ignorance, I got together with Michael Sexton, artistic director of the Shakespeare Society. I didn't know there was a Shakespeare Society until recently. Part of its mission is to make the poet decipherable to the masses, though they don't put it that crudely. They say they're dedicated to increasing the understanding and enjoyment of Shakespeare.

I was curious about the kinds of people who become members of the Shakespeare Society, and what Shakespeare Society parties look like. Are they normal people who stand around sipping white wine, or do they show up in doublets, breeches and ruffled collars and act out the graveyard scene in "Hamlet," or try to stump each other with Shakespeare trivia?

Mr. Sexton, who has been artistic director of the society for eight years, said it's a bit of both. He confessed that he's also not above occasionally throwing around his own erudition. "It's annoying to my wife," he confided. The two recently saw "Lincoln," and when the author of the Emancipation Proclamation quotes Shakespeare, "I'm elbowing her and saying the name of the play."

Here's how dense I am when it comes to Shakespeare: I met Mr. Sexton, who tipped me off to the Shakespearean references in "Lincoln," last Tuesday afternoon at a coffee bar in TriBeCa. A few nights later, I saw "Lincoln" and didn't realize he was reciting Shakespeare even though Mr. Sexton had warned me he was. I just thought he talked funny. I thought he was spouting "Honest Abe" aphorisms, or the lines that Tony Kushner, the screenwriter, put in his mouth.

"Tony Kushner is a great Shakespearean," Mr. Sexton reported. "There are people who can quote chapter and verse. I'm not great at it. But I did pretty good in 'Lincoln.'"

‘Are they normal or do they show up in doublets, breeches and ruffled collars?’

I actually attended a Shakespeare Society event in late November. It was titled "Directing Shakespeare," and featured three directors sitting on a stage and discussing the joys and challenges of adapting the poet's work to the 21st century. The evening was a good deal more amusing than it sounds.

You might be amazed by how many events the Shakespeare Society throws. In October, it held a collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera about the Met's staging of "The Tempest." The evening included members of the cast. I wasn't there, so I don't know whether they burst into song.

A couple of weeks before that, the society held a book party at the National Arts Club to celebrate the publication of "Shakespeare and the Truth of Love" by professors James Shapiro and James Bednarz, described as "a fascinating look at Shakespeare's underappreciated foray into the world of metaphysical poetry." Missed that one, too.

The Shakespeare Society's membership currently stands at around 500. Mr. Sexton said he's pleased it has expanded beyond what he described as a "small coterie of savants."

"There are things like the Browning Society and the Beethoven Society…," he said. Not that there's anything wrong with the Browning or Beethoven societies, he added, but: "We want to use our resources to expand what a literary educational society can be."

These days, the organization includes not just Shakespeare nuts who look like they don't get out that often but also artists, actors and teachers.

Membership in the society starts at $175, but can cost as little as $30 if you're a student or teacher, and $100 if you're under 35.

The fees help support programs in the city's schools. Classically trained actors come and perform Shakespeare. There are teacher-training programs. And the society has a collaboration with the Hunts Point Alliance for Children under which 10- and 11-year-olds perform a Shakespeare play and learn knife skills.

"This year we have a sword-fighting ensemble as well as an acting ensemble," Mr. Sexton explained. "I think I might sit in the back row."

He was only jesting, as the bard often did. I wondered whether the fencers simultaneously recited verse. "I think they're working on that," he said. "It's a real challenge to remember the fight choreography and some iambic pentameter to go on top of that."

The "Directing Shakespeare" discussion I attended was rather heartening. Daniel Sullivan, whose credits include directing the Public Theater's "The Merchant of Venice" and "As You Like It" in Central Park, acknowledged the "difficulty of the language" while describing his mission as "protecting the poetry and making it all legible."

Also, the directors didn't seem wedded to Shakespeare's words, at least not all of them. They didn't have qualms about cutting here and there. Indeed, when we got together for coffee, Mr. Sexton quoted Ben Johnson, a contemporary and friend of Shakespeare's, to the effect that Shakespeare could have used a good line editor.

The artistic director also told me that the Shakespeare Society holds "Speak the Verse" classes for nonprofessionals. According to an online course description, you get to pick your favorite monologue and learn to deliver it with "fluency and power."

I'm thinking of signing up. That would probably go a ways toward curing my Shakespeare insecurity. In the meantime, I was intrigued by a meeting Mr. Sexton had with some app makers the day he met me. Apparently, the way the app works is that the text runs on one side of the screen, and actors performing it on the other. He was impressed. "It's very unfussy, barebones acting," he reported. It's scheduled to launch any day.

Sounds like exactly what I need. I can already envision the icon on my cellphone, right next to my flashlight and emergency radio apps. Shakespeare certainly can't be any more indecipherable than the FDNY transmissions I listen to when I have nothing better to do.

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